The Pharaoh's Secret (NUMA Files 13)

Paul switched on a light and studied the works. They were done in heavy oils, thick with brushstrokes, with badly matched colors.

The first painting was a three-quarter view of a wooden warship. The perspective wasn’t done with any kind of accuracy and the ship looked almost two-dimensional.

The second work depicted a street scene, a dusty alleyway at night, being filled with dark fog. Doors with odd discolorations were shut tight. Not a person in view. In the far upper right-hand corner, he saw three triangles out on what looked like a distant plain.

The third painting depicted several men in a longboat, pulling hard on their oars.

After studying the paintings for a minute, Paul understood what the proctor meant by amateurish. A shout from the front desk called the proctor away. “Coming, Matilda,” he replied. He turned to Paul. “I’ll be right back.”

Paul nodded. And as the proctor left, he returned to Gamay’s side. “Are you finding anythin

g in the letters?”

“Not really,” she said. “I don’t think these even qualify as letters. They have dates but no signatures. They’re not addressed to anyone. And even at my level of French, it’s obvious that they’re rambling and circular in nature.”

“Like a journal?” Paul suggested.

“More like a madman working himself into a lather,” Gamay said. “Talking to himself, going over the same old grudges again and again.”

She pointed to the letter she’d been working on. “This one reads like an angry diatribe against Napoleon and his turning the Republic into a personal empire.”

She flipped backward through the book and pointed at another letter. “In this one, he’s calling Napoleon un petit homme sur un grand cheval—‘a tiny man on a large horse.’”

“That sounds like a good way to get yourself stabbed several times,” Paul noted.

“I’ll say,” she agreed, then flipped to another letter. “This one suggests that Napoleon is ‘destroying the character of France’ and that he’s ‘a fool.’ It says ‘I pledge him my services and he hardens his heart against me. Does he not know what I offer? The truth shall be revealed like the Wrath of God.’”

“‘Wrath of God’?” Paul repeated.

She nodded. “For doing bad things. Like tricking an old lady into making you breakfast by playing on her affections for her dearly departed husband.”

“It was worth it,” Paul replied. “Best meal I’ve had in weeks. But that’s not what I’m thinking about. Come, look at this.”

He brought Gamay to the paintings. “Look.”

She studied them for a second. “What am I looking for?”

“The Wrath of God.”

“Unless that’s the name of this ship, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Paul pointed to the street scene. “Wrath,” he said, “Old Testament–style. That’s Egypt. You can see the Pyramids as tiny triangles in the far background. The doors are marked with red. It’s probably supposed to be blood. Lambs’ blood. And the alleyway is filling with what I was thinking must be dust. But it’s not dust. It’s the last plague sent to Egypt when Pharaoh wouldn’t let the Israelites go. A plague that would come and kill the firstborn of everyone in Egypt who failed to smear blood on their doorjambs.

He pointed to the bottom. “Look here. Frogs. That was the second plague, I think. And there. Locusts. Also a plague.”

Gamay’s eyes widened as she saw what Paul was getting at. She retrieved the book of letters and began reading aloud. “‘La vérité sera révélée’—‘the truth shall be revealed’—‘à lui comme la colère de Dieu’—‘to him like the Wrath of God.’”

“Could he have been painting what he was writing?” Paul asked. “Or vice versa?”

“Maybe,” she said, “but I have an idea.”

She went back for the book of letters and began reading through one of them. “The vessel holds the power, the ship is the key to freedom.”

She pointed at the painting of the warship and then flipped to another letter.

“This one was the most coherent,” she said. “And based on the dates, it’s the last one in the series. From the context, I assume it was written to D’Campion, though, again, it’s not signed or addressed.”

She ran her finger along the text and began reading. “‘What weapon could be this way? he asks. It is nothing but superstition, he insists. At least, this is what his agents tell me. And yet, he asks me to prove to him all that I know. Even if he wants what we can bring him, he no longer wants to pay for it. They say I’m in his debt. A debt that must be paid. I fear it’s unsafe for me to even try, but where else have I to go? And, in truth, I now fear what the Emperor would do with this weapon in his hand. Perhaps the entire world would not be enough for him. Perhaps it’s best that the truth never come out. That it remain with you in your small boat paddling to the shelter of the Guillaume Tell.’”